Alphas trailblazers — again

Free Press staff report

When Tyler Parker, a member of the Henrico County Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, was informed by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources on Sept. 15, 2022, that its application for a “Trailblazers of a New Era” highway marker was approved, he knew the organization’s next steps.

As chairman of the Jones Burial Plot Restoration at Evergreen Cemetery, Mr. Parker then helped organize a ceremony to highlight the marker and recognize the trailblazers it soon would be erected to honor, Dr. Joseph Endom Jones and Rosa Kinckle Jones, prominent educators whose son, Eugene Kinkly Jones, would go on to co-found Alpha Phi Alpha. The sign, installed at the cemetery on Evergreen Road in Richmond reads:

Dr. Joseph Endom Jones and

Riverview Baptist Church

For the first time in my life, I developed empathy for a white person. In that moment when I saw my mom and realized she had been in this place for much of her life and had suffered, I began to realize, wow, Black people aren’t the only ones that suffer. And it also meant a lot to me that I could see how much her faith meant to her, that she saw herself as a hopeless cause. My mom, in fact, was not a hopeless cause because she had faith and because she did things that were so courageous for a young white woman in that time. I began to see her not as a hopeless cause but in fact as a very powerful, inspirational woman.

You call this book a “nontraditional story on race and faith.” What do you want people to carry away when they close your book?

I think people have become so disenchanted. They feel like these type of racial, political divisions are a permanent part of our future. But I’ve seen people change in incredible ways in my family. I’ve seen people change in incredible ways in the churches I attend. I’ve seen myself change in incredible ways. I just don’t want people to give up.

St. Peter Baptist Church

Rosa Kinckle Jones, prominent educators in post-Emancipation Richmond, are buried here. Joseph Jones, enslaved at birth, taught at Virginia Union University for 45 years. A minister, he served as corresponding secretary of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention and installed many Black clergymen in pastorates. His wife, Rosa, earned a teaching degree from Howard University and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She taught music at Hartshorn Memorial College for decades and led the Woman’s Union Beneficial Department, an insurance company. Their son Eugene Kinckle Jones led the National Urban League and in 1906 co-founded Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. On Saturday, May 20, several members of various Alpha Phi Alpha chapters attended a ceremony in recognition of the marker and the Joneses.

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Broad Rock Baptist Church 5106 Walmsley Blvd., Richmond, VA 23224 804-276-2740 • 804-276-6535

“MAKE IT HAPPEN”

Pastor Kevin Cook